OPERATION BLUEBIRD. Top-secret “Bluebird” was a “behavior-modification” program jointly undertaken with the Pentagon. Bluebird was a continuation of a Nazi program that had been conducted at Dachau concentration camp. CIA scientists, many of whom were former Nazis, used human guinea pigs at the Pentagon’s chemical warfare base in Edgewood, Maryland.

The first operations under Bluebird were conducted in Japan three months after the new operation was launched. Twenty-five North Korean war prisoners were given depressants and stimulants, then injected with barbiturates, hypnotized, and finally interrogated. In other experiments, CIA scientists used intensive polygraph testing and the stimulants Benzedrine and Picrotoxin.

Bluebird also included experiments in electro-shock therapy and psycho-surgery. In an effort to induce amnesia for varying lengths of time. At a Richmond, Virginia hospital, an “electro-sleep” machine was used on various patients to induce sleep without shock or convulsions.

Gottlieb also conducted experiments into Canada in the 1950s. As part of the Society for Investigation of Human Ecology (SIHE), Dr. Ewen Campbell used electroshock and the use of hallucinogens. The goal was to “depattern” both normal and abnormal behavior by creating temporary amnesia. Subjects were bombarded with continuous taped messages and sensory deprivation, and they were injected with LSD.

Electro-shock treatments consisted of waking a patient three times during the night and administering several drugs, changing around the quantities of each until he thought he achieved the best results. Patients were given 100 milligrams of Thorazine, 100 milligrams of Nembutal, 100 milligrams of Seconal, 150 milligrams of Veronal, and 10 milligrams Phenergan. Subjects were also given electro-shock treatments that consisted of a dose of 110 volts, lasting a fraction of a second. The power was increased to 150 volts that caused major convulsions.

In 1953, Dr. John Lilly of the National Institutes of Health, devised a method of placing 600 tiny sections of hypodermic tubing in the skulls of monkeys. Then he inserted electrodes inside the tubes and ran them to the monkeys’ brains. Using electricity, Lilly discovered precise areas of the brains that caused pain, anxiety, fear, and anger.

The next year, Lilly isolated the operations of the brain -- not by electrodes -- but through sensory deprivation. He invented a special “tank” which was filled with body-temperature water. Subjects were submerged in the water and breathed through tubes. They were deprived of sight and sound. Some subjects were injected with LSD before they were placed in the sensory-deprivation tanks. (William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History)

OPERATION ARTICHOKE. In late 1952, the top secret Bluebird operation was changed to “Artichoke” Under the direction of Richard Wendt of the Psychology Department at the University of Rochester, narco-hypnosis was used as a tool to extract confessions. Psychiatrists first tried experiments by injecting a sedative or a hallucinogenic drug into the subject and then attempting to induce a trance state of mind. When the subject reached a “twilight zone,” he was interrogated. An intravenous hookup was inserted in both arms and was operated by the interrogator. Thus, the subject’s state of mind could be regulated between a state of consciousness and unconsciousness.

Other experiments included the use of the depressant Seconal, the stimulant Dexedrine, and Tetrahydrocannabinol -- the active ingredient in marijuana. (William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History)